When it comes to the August bank holiday weekend it really is a punter’s market, with almost too much choice, and Beatyard up against veteran festivals like Castlepalooza and Indiependence, and the new venture All […]
Category: Festivals
Novi Sad’s EXIT strategy
Most festivals in Ireland or the UK boast about their wonderful setting, usually in the grounds of some stately home that’s fenced off from the session ruffians. It probably makes sense – protecting against the elements, […]
Can’t get No Sleep: Going the extra mile at Exit Festival in Serbia
It’s lunchtime in a sweltering Belgrade airport and Nina Kraviz glides past me and joins the queue, as if she hasn’t just banged out techno to thousands of diehards in the moat of a Serbian […]
Here’s your top 10 Longitude acts for this weekend
One of the funniest Twitter rage storms of the year was the huffing over the Longitude line-up — with the ‘real music’ brigade moaning that there were no proper bands on the bill. These lads […]
It’s Showtime at Sea Sessions
AS IRELAND’S only surf and music festival, expect the average punter you meet at the seaside bash to have a lot more stamina than your regular session rollover head covered in grass stains and last […]
AVA Festival: It’s all about the Belfast crowd
AVA creator and organiser Sarah McBriar was boasting in the Irish Times this week about the festival’s USP — the unpretentious up for it Belfast crowd. If you’ve got that as a base for an […]
Here’s a radio documentary about why you should be at Open Ear this weekend
With AVA festival and Forbidden Fruit this weekend and Life Festival last week hoovering up thousands of techno buzzers, a select few hundred are heading to the wilds of Cork for the underground electronic music […]
Here’s your top 10 Forbidden Fruit acts this weekend
Life Festival in Mullingar got the head start on the summer season last weekend, with nearly every weekend booked up with sessions up and down the country. And as usual, Forbidden Fruit in Dublin is […]
Shake your Honey-maker at Life Festival this weekend
Life Festival jumps the gun on the bank holiday weekend with the first big weekender of the summer season – while also avoiding the clash next week of Open Ear and Forbidden Fruit and […]
Lookin’ good today for BBC Biggest Weekend
When the Biggest Weekend was announced, Beeb bosses claimed it would be “the biggest single music event ever attempted by the BBC”. No pressure then. With Glastonbury taking one of its occasional years off to […]
20 European music festivals to mark in your 2018 diary
No matter how many times we say it, talk of Irish festival fatigue is greatly exaggerated – at least where ticket sales are concerned. This week we woke up to the launch of a new […]
The city of Groningen off the Eurosonic path
For four days every January, the small Dutch city of Groningen becomes the centre of Europe’s music scene — with tens of thousands landing in northeast Holland for Eurosonic. Eurosonic-Noorderslag is Europe’s biggest showcase of […]
Dutch and go: 20 things to take away from Eurosonic 2018
The dust has settled on this year’s Eurosonic – the annual showcase in the Dutch city of Groningen that’s a platform for breaking new bands, filling Europe’s festival line-ups and bookers, labels and industry heads […]
Open Ear ’18 is a crucial window into the Irish electronic underground
The third edition of Open Ear returns on the June bank holiday – a showcase of essential acts from the Irish electronic music underground, in the stunning Sherkin Island off West Cork. The first wave […]
10 acts to look out for at Whelan’s Ones To Watch
The only thing more annoying than January is the insufferable moaning about the greyest month of the year. With half the country talking about Dry January as if they’re on barefoot Lough Derg pilgrimage, and […]
Moo Kid 